U.S. Right-Wingers Keep Confusing Culture War With Actual War

Some conservatives in the United States have recently developed a bizarre tendency to uncritically consume foreign military recruiting propaganda. In 2021, Sen. Ted Cruz circulated Russian propaganda in an attempt to malign U.S. military recruiting efforts, and Fox News host Tucker Carlson is on the record complaining that the U.S. military is “more feminine” in comparison to the Chinese military’s “more masculine” nature. Most recently, Sen. Marco Rubio picked out an officer’s brief participation in a shipboard spoken word event as evidence that the U.S. Navy’s internal priorities are misplaced while the People’s Liberation Army Navy trains for war.
In an attempt to score points in a culture war, a select group of pundits and politicians—very few of whom have served themselves—appear to be interpreting these propaganda videos as indicators of combat effectiveness. Whether the videos feature shirtless men doing pushups or glowering paratroopers dropping from the skies, there’s a desire to see the United States emulate these warped displays of apparent masculine prowess—but this would be a mistake.

Anyone consuming these videos needs to understand what they actually are: a farce. Much like the U.S. Marines who slew a lava monster and battled chess pieces in recruiting commercials in the 1980s and ’90s, the soldiers in these videos are almost certainly paid actors. The real Russian military is a mostly conscript force typified by abuse, sexual assault, and working conditions that would make Upton Sinclair faint. Meanwhile, its fellow authoritarian, “no limits” partner, China, has a military that is rife with corruption, hidebound with Communist Party-driven structures that preclude original thought or tactical creativity, and that hasn’t seen actual fighting since 1986—and no full-scale war since 1979. In combat, many of its soldiers will die for the simple reason that they are not allowed to think.

This is not license to ignore the threat posed by either military, but it should be clear that neither is an organization that any Western force should look to emulate. Whatever faults the U.S. military may have, its training is envied, sought after, and emulated (often poorly) around the world. China and Russia rely on scripted training with limited combat value. Much of their training is used to repress their own people.

For U.S. politicians to hold them up as superior is to favor political point-scoring in a facile culture war over U.S. military effectiveness. This not only is dangerous to U.S. national security but also actively undermines Americans who have sworn an oath to support and defend the Cons ution and do so with dignity and respect for their fellow service members.

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https://archive.is/hdrK3#selection-1187.0-1271.298

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